A pilot composting program was started a couple years ago in Edmonds and Lynnwood to try and encourage local businesses and restaurants to cut down on their waste.
Now, hundreds of businesses and restaurants countywide have signed on, making the program a permanent fixture and saving 4,143 tons of compostable material from reaching the landfill in 2008 alone.
Steve Fisher is the recycling coordinator in Edmonds and Lynnwood, where he said 30 businesses participated last year and together saved 840 tons through the cities’ commercial organics collection program.
Fisher expects even more businesses to join this year, saving thousands of tons of compostable material from needlessly filling landfills.
“This program, when combined with regular recycling, can save the businesses money by having less of their waste hauled off as garbage, which has the most expensive hauling rate per ton,” Fisher said.
Sixty-five percent of what a typical food service business throws in the garbage is compostable, which includes any sort of food, food-stained cardboard (such as pizza boxes), yard waste and clean wood. Thirty percent can be recycled. Only 5 percent of the original garbage has to end up in the landfill.
So how does the program work?
Fisher, with the help of some other team members, has been going around to area businesses that handle food to inform them of the benefits of composting and how it can save them money. For the businesses that have signed on, they separate their compostable food scraps and recyclables from their solid waste with containers and compostable bags supplied by the county. Then, Cedar Grove Composting, a commercial facility north of Everett, comes and hauls it away.
Cedar Grove started hauling away compost just over a year and a half ago.
“Prior to that … I was just working with our regular garbage haulers,” Fisher said. “Of course, the hauling away of the material is crucial, and that’s what changed when Cedar Grove decided to come in and actually haul the material directly to their facility using their own trucks. That’s where the program moved kind of from that pilot stage to a bigger stage and spread countywide.”
Snohomish County also raised its rates for dumping garbage at its three transfer stations. Also called a tip fee, the charge helps cover basic operations at the stations. Fisher hopes this increased rate will cause more businesses to begin composting.
“On average, it’s about 20 percent cheaper than hauling away garbage,” Fisher said of composting. “The goal here is maybe to look and see what you can take out of (your garbage), and what you’re left with is the least amount you’re sending to the garbage. There’s where you’re going to be saving money.”
Composting has many uses in the community. Compost produced at the Cedar Grove facility can be used with landscaping and development projects, while the Department of Transportation uses it with road projects.
Businesses that participate in the program vary. Virtually every grocery store in Snohomish County has been or is now composting their food waste. A large number of restaurants also are composting. The Everett AquaSox, Lynnwood Convention Center and Stevens Hospital also have joined in.
Fisher sees this program as the new trend in recycling.
“It’s kind of an enhanced recycling program,” he said. “It’s like the next wave of what can be possibly diverted out of the garbage stream and used as a resource.”
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